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First, welcome to this forum! And your opinion means plenty, just as someone who has made thousands of posts. I liked your positive outlook, seems gloom and doom is an easy mode to get into these days. I try to be positive mixed with a healthy dose of realism. We have our Northbound Alaska Hubbard Glacier cruise for August on hold at present, holding out hope, realizing whether we go or not is out of our control. But....we will do it sometime. Good luck on your cruise and keep up the forward thinking!

I had given our TA the go ahead to book our August 2020 Alaska cruise then got caught up with the times reading this thread. So luckily I caught him before he fired off the $500 credit card payment. I'm a little embarrassed at how little I knew of the Alaska/Canada mandates on travel....but I know now. I'm shifting to looking at late spring/early summer 2021for this cruise. Can someone give me an idea of what time frame I should shoot for as far as weather, whales, etc.? Thanks!

Very much appreciated MarvinS!

Thanks for the honesty and it would only be brutal in the eyes of the beholder. I admit I have been a bit naive, living in a relatively mild Covid 19 area compared to other areas....even though I have been glued to the news. I promise you many, many Americans have obided by the rules but the media tends to focus on the idiots who do not. I had hoped to visit your beautiful country and Alaska, still do but at a later date.

Thanks Rob&Ana, MarvinS!! Much needed info and advice! I can see we were a little hasty planning this cruise, thanks to this thread we haven't thrown any money at it yet. MarvinS.....where would be the best news source where I could also monitor this mandate daily?

I checked on this mandate and it was issued March 25. Does anyone know if it remains in effect, any ideas on how long, etc. etc. We are in the process of booking the Northbound Alaska and Hubbard Glacier cruise for late August....may need to hold off....opinions??

Chau, thank you so much for replying!!

We've used them and highly recommend them. They have a veterans discount which you apply for on line which appealed to me. When we got to Port Parking after the cruise and realized we were short one suitcase, the shuttle promptly took us back to the terminal and when we were ready to go back to Port Parking we hopped right on the shuttle....no problems. https://www.portparking.com/

Yeah, I thought it was kinda cute....?

Bucket lister coming up first of June.....Rome then Greek Isles on Explorer. I am watching this and trying not to overreact but it's hard to do with the news bombarding us with details 24-7. The "outbreak" in northern Italy is concerning but will it be a deal breaker?? Time will tell....not the media.

We did the ship's tour on Liberty in December, thoroughly enjoyed it and highly recommend it. To me the highlight was the Engineering Control Room and the bridge. When we were in the Engineering Control Room, the supervisor was explaining operations of the ship......the incident with the collision of the two Carnival ships in Cozumel had just happened, so I asked the supervisor what they knew about the cause of the collision. He told me to pose that question to the personnel on the bridge. I got a very interesting and informed reaction on the bridge, basically it was human error and would never happen on a RCL ship. The kitchens, storage and laundry were interesting, they took us into the booze storage room but didn't give out samples. Needless to say, the booze storage room had tight security. No pun intended. It was amazing to see how busy the personnel were and how well coordinated. They took a lot of pride in that. Well worth the money and time!!

Thx for the good explanation. LOL I was wondering about the genie also. Being mere balcony cruisers we tipped our guy $100 and I thought that was generous.

Our recent cruise on Liberty was awesome! Thanks to this forum with all of your help, we had very few problems and totally enjoyed ourselves. If you haven't experienced a Christmas cruise on RCL, I highly recommend it. We had The Key and feel it was money well spent. Only problem was our garment bag with my dress-em-up clothes wound up in Bay City. It had our The Key tag on it but the porter in the terminal loaded it up on the cart with a party of 17 people and nobody noticed until they got home. Ooooops. The nice lady called while we were enroute home and assured us she would UPS it, which she did. RCL never followed up on the lost bag report. Shame on them.

My Vietnamese friend. Liberty of the Seas, Dec. 22-29 people search.

My wife (Kathey) and I will be on Liberty for the Christmas cruise 22-29. It's also her birthday cruise (23rd). We've been looking forward to this for nearly a year and it's almost here! Merry Christmas everyone!?

Sure hope you get to see the Cowboys beat the Pats..... ?

Haunt this site, ask a lot of questions, print and keep info that is vital. You will get it all here! Welcome aboard!

Here ya go https://www.royalcaribbeanblog.com/2019/11/11/how-get-military-veteran-discount-royal-caribbean-cruise

WTG on your NED! My cancer surgery was Jan. 2017 and my oncologist keeps giving me good reports. Wishing you the best!

Thank you! I'm having a wonderful day and as proud as I can be for having served. And thanks for the tip on the military discount....will check it out.

Believe me, I understand your questions. My wife and I took our first cruise when I retired....and loved it. We intended to plan more cruises but thanks to the stock market crash of 2008, we had to settle in to a low budget lifestyle....not complaining, we have been blessed in other ways. We talked about cruises and travel sometimes but the money just wasn't there.....but we held out hope. Thanks to agent orange exposure in Vietnam and a resulting VA disability, we were finally able to change our lifestyle drastically and began cruising. We recently went on a Hawaiian cruise (Pride of America, NCL) and we have a birthday/Christmas cruise on RCL next month, and a Greek Isles cruise out of Rome (RCL) next June. We are now talking about an Alaska cruise next August. One year ago we did not imagine this kind of lifestyle change. So....things change, sometimes for the good, sometimes not. Like Forrest Gump said...."Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know just what you're going to get". So....we are just taking it as it comes and always thankful.

You could always not accept the risk and just stay at home....but a meteor might crash through your roof and there ya go.....?

We got "The Key" for our upcoming birthday/Christmas cruise thinking there was a limit on the number per cruise they would sell. I have since wondered if that is true. I mean, if 90% wanted "The Key" would they sell it to them? Anyone?

Chris, I have to commend you!!! You put everything you need for a six month cruise in one suitcase.....we go on a seven day cruise and take five suitcases!!! That is amazing! I enjoyed your vlog and look forward to more. I am subscribing to your channel for sure. Keep them coming!

Hey Joe....I've used only one per bag using the wire loop ties, no problems yet. Using two certainly wouldn't be a problem though. Thanks for your service and all others that responded! I wasn't on a sub but was a Plankowner on USS Biddle (DLG-34), later became CG-34. Two extended cruises to Tonkin Gulf, the first was an around-the-world cruise. Anchors aweigh!!